Where the Heart Is
by nicnac918
Summary: True Love happens while Destiny is busy making other plans


Sherlock's mummy has a bright red spot like a sunburst right on the bridge of her cheekbone. To a young and nautically minded Sherlock, it looks just as though someone stole a bit of Polaris and hid it beneath Mummy's skin while she was being created. There's a piece stuck under Father's lips as well. Sherlock thinks that it must have gotten there when he kissed her; Father is always kissing Mummy on the cheek, lining their marks up perfectly.

One day, Sherlock asks Mummy if he can touch her Polaris to try to get a bit for herself, she laughs – a bright happy sound. She ruffles a hand through his hair and crouches down close. Sherlock marks what comes next as Important; any time Mummy has something of significance to share, she makes sure to do it at eye level. "A North Star a perfect way to describe it. But you'll have to wait if you want one for yourself. When your soul mate touches you for the first time it'll appear all by itself. It's destiny's way of guiding you home."

Sherlock scowls. Even at a mere four years old, he finds the concept of destiny completely ridiculous.

* * *

By the time he turns seventeen, Sherlock has perfected the art of never touching anyone, without anyone realizing he's avoiding skin contact. The last thing in the world he wants is for someone to think a bit of skin pigment gives them any right to push themselves into Sherlock's life and try to _change_ him. But when people know he's avoiding being touched, they assume he's making some kind of statement about free will (he isn't) and that it means he's interested in debating the merits of soul mates with anyone with two brain cells to rub together (he isn't).

* * *

Sherlock has a feeling about John, right from the moment he walks into the lab at St. Barts. And, while feelings are no replacement for facts and observations, the intuition of a well-trained mind can frequently point that well-trained mind in the correct direction. It's certainly enough to justify bringing John to Baker Street to investigate further.

As they spend the next day together, Sherlock's initial suspicions are more than born out. John is fascinating. He is an admirable assistant and colleague, especially being that it is only his first day. But even beyond that, there are so many layers to the man, and they only get deeper the more Sherlock looks. He could spend weeks, months, perhaps even years studying John Watson and not grow bored.

Then there is a moment, while Sherlock is being interrogated by Lestrade and John is standing behind police tape pretending to be completely unassuming, when their eyes meet. And it occurs to Sherlock that he can have this. This man, this bit of danger and safety and mystery all wrapped up in a wooly and frankly extremely ugly jumper, can be Sherlock's. (In retrospect, that thought is probably when all the trouble begins.)

* * *

It takes John an embarrassingly long time to catch on. It's not until he's insisting on seeing to a knife wound Sherlock managed to get – more of a graze than a stab and not worth worrying about – that things come to a head. John has forgotten to grab the gloves, and when Sherlock insists, he sees the light dawn in John's eyes. Sherlock waits for some sort of reaction, and thinks he has it when John gets up and walks off. But he comes back a moment later, hands encased in nitrile and not another word is said about it.

* * *

Sherlock startles awake, his breathing harsh in the wake of his nightmare. He was back at the pool again, but this time there was no serendipitous phone call, just an explosion and fire and blood and John dead.

Sherlock jumps up from the couch and stalks across the room, heading to his violin. But his feet carry him straight past the instrument and up to John's bedroom. Fine, one quick look to assure his traitorous emotions that John was alive and well. But a quick look turns into a long one, Sherlock standing in John's doorway and watching the man breath in and out. An urge sweeps through him, so gradually and suddenly at the same time, it might have been there all along. Sherlock crosses the room quietly, making sure after each step that he hadn't woken John. Finally, he reaches John's bedside.

John is lying on his stomach, arms wrapped around his pillow and head turned to the side. It's ridiculous sentiment, everything that Sherlock never wanted and yet if Moriarty were to come back, if something were to happen to John… Sherlock can't not know. Sherlock reaches out with one finger and touches John's cheekbone.

Nothing happens.

* * *

John never once attempts to violate Sherlock's rule against touching. Occasionally, though, Sherlock will catch John looking at him, his fingers drumming or thumbs twiddling or something else, but his hands always moving. Sherlock knows what he's thinking and it's in these moments that the desire to confess is always strongest. But if he were to tell John the truth, that the two of them have not been pulled together by destiny or the stars or any other such nonsense, then John might leave and begin looking elsewhere for his soul mate. And the thought of that is completely unbearable.

* * *

For a fleeting moment, Sherlock wishes he really were about to die. It isn't that Sherlock has any desire to be dead, but if he were actually about to jump off a building, maybe then he could tell John everything. There are so many words Sherlock wants to say to him, words that Sherlock feels like he has been choking down since forever. But Sherlock will be back someday, someday soon he hopes, so he can't risk it. Instead, he spews out the lies that Moriarty's men, who are no doubt listening, expect to hear and jumps.

On the ground, Sherlock rushes to prepare himself before John can come around and see. The blood on his head is Sherlock's own, supposedly for verisimilitude, but Sherlock hopes John ends up brushing his finger through it, the only bit of red he can share with John. Sherlock lies down and continues to observe through his eyelashes – he can't miss one last chance to see John. The man pushes his way pass the 'spectators' and reaches toward Sherlock's wrist, no doubt to take his pulse. At the last second he stops himself, pulling away before his fingers can make contact with Sherlock skin.

* * *

The first thing Sherlock does when he gets a moment of quiet is go into Mind Palace and makes his way to the section all about John. What had once been a shelf, then a closet, and then a room, now takes up a veritable wing. He can't delete any of it, not even if he wanted to. But he can pack it all up and he does, putting each part away with all the care it deserves. Then he moves every last piece down into the very depth of the basement. John can't come with him, not this time.

* * *

If anyone had noticed Sherlock surprise at his own inability to observe, he would have blamed it on that disgusting bit of hair that John had grown over his lip in Sherlock's absence. (How John could expect anyone to be able to focus on anything but his ridiculous facial hair when in his presence was yet another mystery about the man that Sherlock will never solve.) Sherlock is afraid, however, that the truth is his obliviousness comes from a more insidious source; he simply did not _want_ to know. He wants to believe that everything is, or at least can be, exactly as it was before. He lets himself think that this is an ordinary date with an ordinary woman he is interrupting, like many others before. He continues to believe that, even as they work their way through numerous restaurants and fistfights. It isn't until John storms off and the woman – Mary – promises to talk to him that Sherlock observes anything about her at all. Her hand comes up and tucks a bit of hair behind her ear, highlighting the little stars on her temple. Sherlock doesn't need to see John's hands to know where the matching imprints are.

* * *

Sherlock would have thought, had he ever allowed himself to think about something as horrible as planning the wedding of John Watson to his soul mate, that this would be unbearable, the hardest and most horrific thing he'd ever done. But the truth is it's extremely easy, practically effortless. He can do all that's required of him and much more without a thought or even the slightest temptation to do otherwise. Because this is _John Watson's_ wedding, and John Watson deserves the best and the brightest of all that is and ever was and ever shall be. John deserves perfection.

* * *

Sherlock needs to leave the hospital soon, but first he has to check something. He unwraps the bandages from around his chest to look at the gunshot wound there. His injury has been well cared for, making it appear small and neat. It will scar, of course, but there is no question of it looking anything like the gnarled mass of flesh on John's shoulder. He had hoped, but hadn't really believed it would happen; the disparity in the quality of their medical care was too great.

Sherlock has noted, on the rare occasion in the past when he had chance to see it, that there is a star-shaped look to John's scar. It's nowhere near as distinct as the soul mate marks, but unmistakable none-the-less. Sherlock's scar won't come from John, like it should, but Mary. Still, there is symmetry to it, that Mary would be the one to take John away from Sherlock, and she would also be the one to give him this. It isn't enough, it can't ever be enough, but it's something, and that's more than he had before.

Sherlock wraps himself back up and gets dressed before slipping out, leaving no one the wiser.

* * *

Sherlock oscillates between hating this and loving every second of it. Because John is here, back in Baker Street since the truth about, or rather the mystery behind, his wife has become known. But he's not fully John any more. John has always been a man of action, but now he spends long hours in contemplation, sorting through his wife's betrayal.

Still, Sherlock dreads the day that John springs to action once more, because he already knows what that action will be. Just as sure as he knows the stars in John's fingertips, and the pale skin of his own.

* * *

"Why are you pushing this so hard?" John says, sounding exasperated. This _is_ the third time this week Sherlock has picked this argument, but John continues to refuse to see sense.

"She's your soul mate," Sherlock repeats the obvious, again.

"She shot you!"

"She didn't mean to kill me." If Mary truly wanted him dead, he would be.

"No, because if she really hadn't meant to kill you, she wouldn't have shot you."

"Come now John, we both know that the two of you getting back together is inevitable, I don't understand why you're prolonging it," Sherlock says. He flings himself up from the chair and begins pacing – he can't sit still in this frustration anymore.

"And I don't understand why you keep saying I'm prolonging the inevitable. Because of these?" John asks disdainfully, flicking his fingers in Sherlock's direction. "These don't matter, people matter. _You_ matter Sherlock."

"And Mary matters," Sherlock completes for him. "However ignorant to social matters I may seem, I'm not an idiot. I know the skin pigment that's important, but what it represents. Mary is the most important person to you, and if you are going to leave me for her, I'd rather you get on with it."

The moment the words leave his mouth, Sherlock knows he's said too much. John knows it too, from his shocked expression. Sherlock casts desperately about for anything he can say, to amend the words or take them back or anything, but his mind is more frighteningly blank than it's ever been.

John breaks his spell first, erupting into gales of laughter so hard he has to lean forward in his chair and clutch at his stomach. Sherlock thinks there might be an edge of hysteria to it, but he can't _think _what to do about it. Finally, John recovers completely and stands up to cross over to Sherlock. "You stupid, stupid git." He reaches up and grabs a fistful of Sherlock's hair, using the leverage to mash their lips together. The kiss is messy, inelegant, hot, passionate, tantalizing, perfect, _John_. "I wanted it to be you, too," John whispers when they pull apart to breathe.

There are questions Sherlock could ask, relevant points he should bring up. Instead, he brings their lips together again and resolutely decides not to worry about it. Even after thirty-three years have passed, he still finds the concept of destiny completely ridiculous.


End file.
